


Kissed by Fire

by niffizzle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fiendfyre (Harry Potter), Fluff and Angst, Mild Sexual Content, Post-Hogwarts, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:27:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28009962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niffizzle/pseuds/niffizzle
Summary: Azkaban was a freezing fortress in the middle of the North Sea that devoid all prisoners of warmth. Or so Draco was told. The howling winds never bothered him. Nor the supposed chill emitting from the stone walls.He hadn’t felt cold since a lick of Fiendfyre scarred his flesh.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 145
Kudos: 910
Collections: mightbewriting mightbehavingabirthday





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mightbewriting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightbewriting/gifts).



> HAPPIEST OF HAPPY BIRTHDAYS TO MIGHTBEWRITING!!!
> 
> This isn’t Perplexed & Pierced, nor is it a Dramione with a side of Scorbus, but it **IS** a fic inspired by a Marianas Trench song. Alas, you already claimed The Killing Kind, so I had to pick something else off Phantoms 😉 So here it is: a flangsty little soul-bonding story (loosely) inspired by Only the Lonely Survive
> 
> Endless love and thanks to HeyJude19 for her alpha/beta help. 
> 
> P.S. Alliteration and colons included 😘

Looking back, he should have seen the signs.

“It’s that Mudblood. _Avada Kedavra!”_

Even hearing that word shook Draco to his core. He hadn’t uttered it since the Astronomy Tower. Now, the word echoed throughout the Room of Hidden Things. 

His next action had been a reflex. 

As soon as the curse had left Crabbe’s tongue, Draco cast a protective spell. She dived aside, though it wouldn’t have been fast enough. An invisible barrier consumed the deadly green light before it claimed its intended victim.

Draco didn’t have enough time to think about the significance of his impulse. A heartbeat later, Potter shot a Stunning Spell. Crabbe lurched out of its path and knocked into Draco, causing his mother’s wand to fall from his hand and roll out of sight. 

Four years had passed since then: one awaiting sentence at the Manor, three in Azkaban. While Dementors no longer served as guards, Azkaban was still a freezing fortress in the middle of the North Sea that devoid all prisoners of warmth. Or so Draco was told. The howling winds never bothered him. Nor the supposed chill emitting from the stone walls. 

He hadn’t felt cold since a lick of Fiendfyre scarred his flesh.

Scars littered Draco’s body. His once unmarred, pale skin had long ago been tainted with the thin white lines of a near-death moment and the putrid black curl of a sorely-regretted decision. He recoiled whenever he spotted either one. But the same was not the case for this other scar: a single stretch that began just above his wrist and curved up towards his pinky before dipping down again for a quarter-inch. He should detest the mark—a visual reminder of the flame that had taken his friend’s life. Yet Draco did not. 

In the dark days of a damp cell, it served as an internal beacon. His fingertip’s trace along its outline would warm him like sipping hot butterbeer in front of a roaring fire. It was his shield. His sanity. Instead of succumbing to the mental strains of three years’ imprisonment, that scar provided hope. The cursed flames had killed Crabbe, but they had spared Draco. If he could survive that, then he could survive this as well. 

~*~*~

It was odd returning to the regular wizarding world. House arrest had kept Draco away from the changes that occurred following the war: the shops on Diagon Alley had all reopened; Dark Magic no longer deterred the common witch or wizard from shopping on Knockturn; people smiled again. But Draco didn’t have time to explore. He had a reason for Flooing into the heart of Wizarding London.

Dragonhide leather met pavement as his feet led him to the dingy Muggle street where a broken-down red telephone box stood out against the shabby offices and graffiti-covered walls. He pressed the five-number combination, and the telephone box lowered him into the depths of the Ministry of Magic.

Given the choice, Draco wouldn’t have stepped foot back inside the establishment. He’d spent more than enough time in those level ten courtrooms to sufficiently fill a lifetime. But if he wanted his Hawthorn wand returned—which he very much did—then he needed to retrieve it from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

The rickety lift stopped at level two, and Draco stalled a single step into the department. The space was sweltering. Granted, it had been hot outside—by London summer standards, at least—but the Ministry was underground. The sun shouldn’t affect them down here. And yet, Draco had to resist the urge to free one button from his robes’ collar. 

He stiffened as a sea of Ministry drones stared in his direction. No doubt they had all been warned that today was the day the infamous Draco Malfoy would be arriving to retrieve his wand. He paid them little mind as he strode across the grey carpets worn from foot traffic. With each move closer to the department’s front desk, the heat intensified, like rays of sunlight bore directly into him. Draco kept his gaze forward. He refused to let them think he was impacted by their spiteful looks, nor the immature Heat Hex one of them must have cast to make his insides ignite more than they naturally did. 

“Draco Malfoy?” the front desk witch asked.

He withheld a scoff. As if anyone else with white-blond hair would warrant such glares. Unless they expected his father to be released any time soon, the question was a waste of both their time.

Draco nodded anyway. Petulance would only keep him there longer.

She set a thin, long box on the desk, along with a few other personal effects that had been taken prior to his sentence. Despite being left-handed, Draco reached for them with his right, keeping his scarred hand out of sight from the on-lookers. He returned his grandfather Abraxas’ watch to his pocket, then pulled his left hand out for a sliver of a second to slide the Malfoy signet ring onto the proper finger. He had nearly gripped the box containing his wand when the front desk witch pushed forward a parchment and quill. 

“Upon reclaiming your wand, you hereby agree to bi-weekly check-ins with a Parole Auror to examine your magical usage and general behaviour in society. Your signature is required below.”

Fuck the Ministry of Magic. Draco should have known they wouldn’t let him live his life normally. Was three years in Azkaban not enough punishment? He hadn’t even killed anyone. He just had the great misfortune of being a Malfoy in a society that saw that name as synonymous with evil. 

Beads of sweat formed on the edge of Draco’s hairline. The Heat Hex was excruciatingly effective. His extremities prickled with warmth while his robes clung to his skin. If he still submitted to the practices his father had instilled, Draco would have demanded to know who had done this to him. Marched up to each Ministry employee with the threat of termination until one of them confessed. But Draco didn’t want to cause a scene. He wanted his wand. He wanted to leave.

Suddenly, a new gaze burned into him. Even before seeing it, the stare set his entire body aflame like a well-aimed _Incendio._

Draco shifted and found one of the previously closed office doors now open. His gut wrenched. In its frame stood a witch he hadn’t seen in four years but whose face was torched into his nightmares. She appeared just as curious as ever, though the wariness was new. While locked away, hardly a day had passed where Draco hadn’t thought of her. Of the ways he had wronged her. Of how he hadn’t been able to stop her screams. 

At least she was still breathing. He had managed one decent deed in his life.

“Your signature, please.”

Draco ignored the fire scorching his skin as he seized the quill and signed his name along the designated line. As long as he could get his wand and leave this tortuous temperature, he’d agree to near anything.

The air didn’t clear until Draco was in the lifts and headed back to the Atrium. He clenched his hand around the Hawthorn wand’s familiar handle for the first time since he had lost it to Potter. Magic hummed through his veins, but Draco couldn’t relish the reunion. Behind shut eyelids, all he could see was the molten stare of Hermione Granger.

There was little chance he would have a restful night’s sleep.

~*~*~

Every second and fourth Thursday of the month, Draco endured the Ministry, though he was never sufficiently prepared. Without fail, a broiling blaze welcomed him the moment he stepped through the lift’s wrought golden grilles as if they were the gates into a hellish inferno. He tried everything: Cooling Charms, Fever-Reducing Potions, entire sticks of Muggle deodorant. He chugged glasses of ice water before coming and strapped ice packs underneath his robes. Nothing tempered the heat. 

While the gritted snarls and stone-cold stares no longer greeted him, whoever thought it fitting to inflict Draco with such temperamental torment hadn’t relented. Yet Draco continued to enter the Department of Magical Law Enforcement as if nothing were amiss. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing him break. 

The first sixty seconds were the worst. Each stride sent shocks of searing warmth through his system as his mind turned feverish. He focused on his footsteps: one foot forward, then the other. As soon as he took thirty-seven paces, the heat would start to break. It always did. Right after he passed the front desk, just as he turned to proceed down the corridor toward the Parole Auror offices. 

That spot also happened to be the one closest to a particular witch’s office.

Outside her door read a placard: “Deputy Head of Magical Law Enforcement.” Draco wasn’t surprised. It would have been more surprising if she _hadn’t_ risen through the Ministry ranks so quickly.

It must have been a busy job; he hadn’t seen her since that initial visit.

Mundanity prevailed through Draco’s meetings as Parole Auror Leiman asked the same routine questions week after week. Did he have any interactions with other former Death Eaters? No. Had he performed any Dark Magic? No. Was he still having nightmares? Yes.

Perhaps if his head wasn’t stuck in a feverish fog, Draco would have been able to avoid that final truth. That answer had gotten him trapped into seeing a Mind Healer on the off-Thursdays he wasn’t stuck with this inane interrogation.

Summer slipped into fall, and soon winter hit. Still, Draco wore his lightweight robes to every parole obligation. The thin, forest green linen provided moderate comfort against the perpetual firestorm that fueled underneath.

Until one day, mid-January, it changed.

The lift approached level two, and Draco savoured one last unaffected breath. Except, when the voice announced their arrival at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, something was different. Something was off. 

He breathed again. 

The stifling suffocation of dense, hot air was gone.

The grilles closed behind Draco as his footing faltered. After six insufferable months, his tormentor had finally decided to cease the Heat Hex. Draco could amble to his meeting without feeling like he was inches from the sun.

For the first time, he could clearly think during his meeting. Leiman wasn’t half as unbearable—though that still didn’t make their conversation pleasant. The questions remained dull, but Draco could breathe. He mindlessly traced the scar on his left hand, enjoying the rush of warmth with which he chose to flood his body. When he reentered the lift, there was almost, _almost_ a smile on his face.

It didn’t last long.

The lift lowered one level. Two.

A third.

The grille opened.

Draco pulled at his robes’ collar.

“Level five, Department of International Magical Cooperation.”

A few people filed out.

One stepped in.

White hot flames swelled inside Draco as if a dragon was burning him from his core. The heat was blinding. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t maintain his hold on the rope hanging overhead as the lift lurched back to life.

At the sudden momentum, Draco stumbled sideways, just as someone’s hand wrapped around his wrist for their own stability. The pressure was intense. Desperate.

_Cold._

A steady stream of contented cool travelled through his veins, stemming from the point of contact and spreading from that touch. It was like stepping under a waterfall after a decade in the desert. Draco didn’t realise just how hot his body had been operating the past four years until the fire dissipated and his vision cleared.

Only then did he get a glimpse of the witch holding on to him as if he was her lifeline. The shock froze his heart.

Granger let go of his wrist, the same shock chilling her stare. Not a second later, the scorching heat returned, incinerating any reaction Draco may have been able to manage otherwise.

The lift’s announcement of the next level broke his fog, and Draco staggered through the grilles and onto the tile floor. He didn’t care that it wasn’t the Atrium; anywhere was better than that lift with Granger.

In the clarity of her absence, Draco could think again. But something was different—not just that he could breathe. 

Draco reached for his wrist where she had touched. Even after the imprint of her thin fingers finally faded, that part of his flesh remained cool. 

~*~*~

Winter’s snow melted, and leaves slowly sprouted from the trees’ bare branches. According to his Mind Healer, Draco had made significant progress the past few months. Draco wasn’t convinced.

While the nightmares had vanished, he wasn’t sure he preferred the alternative. His nightmares had grown predictable. Piercing red eyes, flashes of green. The tumble of one body over the edge of the Astronomy Tower, the collapse of another onto the Manor’s formal dining room table. Screams. So many screams. Her screams. After four years of the same memories plaguing his slumber, he had grown accustomed to jolting awake, drenched in hot sweat. He had never been sure which to blame more: the terrible nightmares or his internal thermometer. 

Draco was now three months nightmare-free. His Mind Healer called it a success. A breakthrough. Supposedly, Draco was learning to forgive himself and move on with his life. He didn’t tell his Mind Healer that the nightmares stopped the same day she touched him.

Every other week, Draco checked her door. Every single time, it was open. Every stolen glance, she was never inside.

Ministry level two remained temperate.

Research filled the rest of Draco’s weeks. He read every text, tome, and title that had ever been published about Fiendfyre. He studied its properties. Its origins. How fiery beasts formed in its abyss and sentient flames strove to consume anything in its path. There were no recorded accounts of anyone surviving its burns, let alone someone who felt its lingering scorch four years later. 

At night, he slept to visions of her pacifying touch. In the morning, he woke in a puddle of sweat.

~*~*~

Draco didn’t know how his Mind Healer convinced him this was a good idea.

_“It might give you closure.”_

Standing outside the Hogwarts Great Hall, it only gave Draco anxiety.

Rumbles of conversations echoed from the opposite side of the double doors. Anyone who had fought in the final battle had been invited back to commemorate its fifth anniversary. Well, not _anyone._ Typically, one did not invite the enemy to such gatherings. And yet, here Draco was. 

He still didn’t understand how his name had made the list. It made sense that his mother had received an invite; Narcissa Malfoy had actively aided their cause, despite doing so for selfish motives. But Draco had been passive at best—assuming one gave him credit for not outright identifying his captured classmates. That felt insignificant compared to the branded serpent still twisting up his forearm.

Draco dragged the back of his hand across his perspiring brow. He may be the sole Death Eater in an impending flock of Phoenixes, but he sure as hell burned like one. An unsettling feeling warned him what the return of that internal fire meant. His research hadn’t provided confirmation, but instincts spoke louder. And there was a snowball’s chance in a dragon’s lair that she hadn’t come. 

He stared at the closed doors for at least ten minutes, debating whether he should enter. It was a big enough step for Draco to even return to these grounds. They were better off celebrating their victory without the reminder of their classmate who had fought for the other side. 

The conversations dwindled, and Draco knew whatever ceremony they were holding had begun. Yet Draco still didn’t enter. Instead, he turned on his heel and headed to the Grand Staircase, not certain where his feet led him, but positive he needed distance from his previous spot. A few students passed him, likely first or second years based on their size. Too young to have been at Hogwarts when it happened. Perhaps too young to remember much of the war at all. 

If he stopped to think where he was going, he’d have to also think about why. So Draco kept walking. Not down the stairs to the familiar dungeons. Up. He only realised where he had gone when his feet instinctively started pacing in front of the tapestry depicting Barnabas the Barmy. 

He could pace for hours, but in his gut, he knew nothing would occur. The Room of Requirement had been destroyed five years ago to the day.

The stone wall was rough against Draco’s back as he slid down its length and settled onto the floor. He stared at the blank expanse where an entrance used to appear, then clamped his eyes closed, thumb rubbing over the scar. He let the warmth consume him, just like it had that fateful night.

The moment they had escaped the Fiendfyre, Draco had fallen off Potter’s broom, lungs wheezing to rid themselves of smoke. A myriad of emotions had battled for prominence. Relief that he was still breathing. Annoyance that Potter had been the one to save him. Frustration that he had lost his mother’s wand. Grief that Crabbe was dead.

And hot. He distinctly remembered feeling _hot._

His brain didn’t have enough capacity to think much of it then. Even if it did, Draco would have dismissed the sensation as Fiendfyre charring the Room of Hidden Things. Hours later, he still didn’t consider it significant when a budding warmth swelled inside his chest while he sat wedged between his parents as they grappled with the first minutes of post-war peace. It wasn’t until they were escorted to the Ministry for initial questioning that Draco noticed the lingering heat and his new scar. 

He squeezed his eyelids tighter as the flames roared inside of him, steadily growing hotter, hotter, _hotter._

“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

The words bounced off the walls, and Draco startled to his feet, discovering a witch standing at the end of the corridor.

Not just any witch. _Granger._

His pulse thrummed at her presence. Twenty feet away and he could still feel the burning buzz beneath his skin. 

He held his head high, unsuccessfully willing the wildfire to wane. “Am I correct to conclude I have you to credit for my invitation?”

Even from a distance, he saw her chest inflate upon a deep inhale. “I needed an excuse for us to see each other outside of the Ministry. I was curious if...”

She took a step forward, and Draco instinctively stepped back, feeling his face flush. A trickle of sweat dripped from his forehead.

Her eyes illuminated. “So you _do_ also feel it.”

Draco blinked at her incredulously. 

_Also?_

Granger ran both palms down the fabric of her scarlet dress then paced forward again. Shock kept Draco rooted in place, frozen despite the surging swelter.

“That day you got your wand— I thought a fire had broken out in the department,” she said, seeming to become equally uncomfortable as she grew closer. “I’m not unaccustomed to random bursts of heat, but that day felt… _different."_

The walls of Draco’s throat were tight while his stomach flipped. “I thought I was the only one.”

“I did, too, until the lift.”

Draco twisted his grip around his left wrist—the one she had touched. For three days it had been cool, only to revert back to the typical heat that flared his flesh. While he figured the reaction significant, he hadn’t found any research to explain _why_ she had affected him so. Part of him had started to wonder if he had imagined his skin ever feeling cool. The whole incident had felt like a fever dream. He could have deluded himself into thinking something had actually come of it. 

Yet Draco found that hard to believe. After five years, he wasn’t sure his brain could fantasise a cold like that. Draco was too intimate with heat. His thumb grazed upward, finding the delicate curve of his Fiendfyre scar.

He had scarcely touched it when a sharp breath cut through the corridor. 

“Malfoy,” Granger stammered through a gasp, eyes blown wide. She clasped a hand over her chest. “What did you just— Did you feel that?”

He furrowed his sweating brow. “Of course I felt it. It’s _my_ scar,” Draco stated, feeling suddenly defensive. But the moment his snap retort left his lips and he processed her stunned expression, he realised something else. _“You_ felt something?”

“It’s like someone’s taken Bluebell Flames and trapped them inside of me.”

Draco’s mind worked to comprehend. But that didn’t make sense. How could she possibly feel something that scarred _his_ body?

His gaze flitted to the blank wall beside them where the Room of Requirement once materialised. 

“It burned you too.”

Her posture stiffened, words suddenly tight. “My ankle. While we were escaping.”

The air between them was thick, even when she remained a good ten feet away. With the way flames tore through Draco, she might as well be standing directly next to him. 

“So we both survived,” he said through heavy lungs. “How?”

“I don’t know,” she confessed, the first time Draco recalled ever hearing Granger admit to not knowing something. “I’ve been researching it for years, but information on Fiendfyre is limited when hardly anyone dares to experiment with it. The Healers at St. Mungo’s hypothesised that I was spared because the flames mostly burned my jeans, not my actual skin, but that doesn’t explain my mark.”

“Your mark?”

“On my ankle.”

Draco tensed. “Have you ever— touched it?”

“I don’t make a habit out of randomly touching my ankles.”

The coil in his stomach tightened. “Try it.”

Granger’s eyebrows knitted together, but she listened anyway. She crouched down, dropping her hand to brush against her ankle, and immediately, the same ripple she must have felt when he touched his scar pulsed through Draco. It started in his chest, like a match finding friction, then caught fire in the fuel of his veins. The heat was more overwhelming than whenever Draco initiated it. For the entire time it flared inside him, it was all he could focus on.

When the fire dimmed to its usual glow, Draco stared at Granger in disbelief. How many countless times had he stirred this similar fire in her over the past five years? Yet a more pressing question danced on the tip of his tongue.

“Why?”

She shifted uncomfortably, cheeks adorned with a fervid flush. “I don’t know that either.”

Silence mingled with the stifling air as they continued to stare at each other from across their gap. They had more questions than answers, but one thing was becoming undeniable: somehow, for whatever reason, their magical cores were linked.

Draco shivered at the thought. He doubted anything good would come from this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics from Only the Lonely Survive: 
> 
> But I know  
> A love like this will end in tragedy  
> You know  
> Every kiss suspendin' gravity  
> Burns us both  
> To love this close  
> We lose ourselves  
> And I know we won't get out alive  
> But only the lonely survive


	2. Chapter 2

The lift opened to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and Draco breathed in deep with relief. It wasn’t hot. Now that they had confirmed being in each other’s company fueled a burning blaze inside them both, surely Granger was smart enough to continue avoiding her office during Draco’s scheduled time in the department. As long as he survived the final three months of his parole meetings, Draco could easily never see her ever again. They needn’t address their apparent connection if they simply ignored it. 

At least, that’s what Draco tried to tell himself. In the six days since Hogwarts, he hadn’t been able to stop searching for answers. And if _he_ was curious, then there was no chance Granger had dropped the issue. 

Draco proceeded down his usual path, heels meeting the dirty, worn carpet as he stepped towards the Parole Auror offices, when the front desk witch called after him.

“Your meeting changed.”

His feet stopped at the spot where the heat used to be the highest.

He tilted his head towards the witch, just enough so she could see his dismay. “I don’t recall receiving an owl notifying me of a different time.”

“The time is the same,” she plainly stated. “But you’ll no longer be meeting with Parole Auror Leiman. Head Deputy Granger is waiting for you in her office.”

If Draco could make his body feel cold, ice would have replaced the fire in his veins. 

But once the initial shock of the information wore off, confusion set in. He shifted his gaze towards her door—closed—and creased his brow. How could she be waiting for him in her office when Draco didn’t feel the tell-tale warmth of her presence? 

With slow, measured steps, Draco approached her door. Conflicting emotions coursed through him. He begrudgingly accepted her brilliance, but if she had already figured out a solution to their problem, Draco would be annoyed. It was one thing to have his magical core linked to her; it was another thing for her to single-handedly resolve the heat surging between them when Draco was still stuck on how their connection had forged in the first place.

Thoughts of Fiendfyre tickled his brain, but when Draco put his hand on the doorknob, they wisped away like steam. A chill greeted his palm. 

Draco almost didn’t enter. The subtle cold emitting from the cool metal enticed him too much. A draft drifted through the gap beneath the door and skittered around his ankles, signifying cold inside her office as well.

He pushed the door open and was immediately met with an unexpected sight and a sharp command.

“Close it! _Quickly.”_

When Draco stalled just a single step over the threshold, too frozen to heed her mandate, a gust of wind blew past him and slammed the door shut. Draco gaped. He hadn’t thought much of the sudden, spreading wildfires he had sporadically experienced throughout the morning. He had dismissed the sensations as Granger experimenting with their recently discovered connected scars while she did her own research. But now, he understood. 

Inside her office was a blizzard. Eight inches of snow coated the floor while more snowflakes continued to fall from the thick grey clouds obscuring the ceiling. To anyone else, it would have been a frosty tundra. To Draco, it was a reprieve.

Granger sat ten feet away, staring straight at him. The last time they had been this close, a firestorm had made him cautious of approaching any nearer. Now, Draco only felt the comfort of a flame flickering inside his chest. Enveloped by the frigid freeze, their burning bond was tempered. They could interact in sanity. 

“Mr Malfoy, if you’d please sit.”

Summer robes dragged across the thick snow as Draco took the seat across from her. She retrieved a stack of parchments that he immediately recognised as his parole case file. Snowflakes cascaded onto its surface, but no wetness lingered.

His expression hardened, though it promptly broke, betrayed by piqued interest. “Doing some digging on me?”

“Not digging,” she said, his file open on her desk. “Though I did review your case and decide that the terms were in need of some revision.”

“Oh?”

She sat up straighter. “You will be meeting with me instead of Parole Auror Leiman for the remainder of your bi-monthly check-ins.”

“My parole is being monitored by the Deputy Head of Magical Law Enforcement herself?” Draco quirked an eyebrow. “Plan on doing this with all former Death Eaters once they’re released back into society?”

“This is a… special case.”

A swirl of flurries blew past them, stirring the parchments in Draco’s file. Granger lifted her wand, and with a swift swish, the falling snow and surrounding winds ceased. Already, Draco could feel the temperature shift. Without the additional placators, heat bubbled beneath his skin, only mildly worse than his typical day-to-day norm. In his summer robes, the heat was still manageable. Though, that didn’t stop him from freeing a single button from the collar. Perfect decorum wasn’t necessary in the privacy of this office. It was only Granger in front of him. 

The meeting proceeded as it always did with Leiman: she requested Draco’s wand, ran the usual gamut of tests to monitor his recent spell use, and recorded his responses to the same bloody questions he answered week after week. 

Did he have any interactions with other former Death Eaters? _No._

Had he performed any Dark Magic? _No._

Was he still having nightmares? _No._

Granger startled at that response.

“Your nightmares… stopped?” The hold on her quill slacked. “All together?” 

Draco tensed. He answered the questions so automatically, he hadn’t paused to consider the implications of confessing that fact to Granger.

Flashes of past nightmares crossed his memory. Deep plum walls. A cry of _Crucio._ Terror-gripped inaction. Screams. Screams. _Screams._

He clenched his eyes shut, pleading those thoughts away. Draco knew what he had done was wrong. He’d spent three long years in Azkaban with little company other than his troubled mind and lengthy list of regrets. But as those harrowing memories faded from the forefront, they were replaced by the recent visions that had superseded his nightmares—a reminder of the last time Draco had felt cold.

The tight clasp of her hand around his wrist. The sudden jolt of his heart. The instant spread of ease throughout his body, if only for the extent of their contact. 

A chair leg’s screech broke the palpable pause as Draco shifted in his seat. “Yes, they stopped.” 

“When?”

He breathed in deep. “January 9th.”

The silence returned. Draco knew he didn’t need to explain that date.

A heavy inhale lifted her chest, wide brown eyes peered straight at him. “And has anything else changed since then?”

The room seemed to grow hotter, though Draco suspected for reasons beyond their magical connection. 

“There was a… temporary change,” he said, fingers instinctively curling around the spot where their skin had met, “but it only lasted a few days.”

She blinked. “Would you elaborate on that?”

“On the record or off?”

“Off.”

Draco’s fingernails clenched into his thighs while he stared at the witch in front of him, a paragon of resilience, even as she gazed at him in astonishment. She looked far too curious to be someone who had felt similar, if not identical, effects as Draco. 

He resisted the urge to brush his thumb over his scar. “After the lift, the place where you grabbed me was cold for three days.”

 _“Three days?”_ Granger’s lips fell agape. “That didn’t happen to me. I— I felt cool when it happened, but nothing lingered.”

They stared at each other in silence. It was the first difference in their reactions to one another that they had uncovered. Draco grappled with the discovery. Surely that was significant. But as he should have suspected, Granger spoke before he had time to formulate even the seed of a theory.

“Touch me.”

His face turned to stone. While the words in context weren’t the most absurd thing she could have said, it still took Draco by surprise. He refused to acknowledge the way his heart seized at the idea of touching her. 

Granger glowered. “Unless you don’t want to because I’m a—”

“You can’t honestly believe I think that anymore.”

He was torn between being enraged or ashamed that she even thought that a possibility. But how could Draco have expected much different? Other than their brief conversation the other day, they hadn’t spoken in five years. Sure, she had testified at his trial, serving as a witness to confirm that the infamous Draco Malfoy had not harmed her in his home, but that didn’t mean much. She was a bloody Gryffindor. They did all sorts of things because they believed them just and fair. 

It would have been different if she knew what he had done in the Room of Hidden Things. Yet she didn’t. In her attempt to dodge the spell, Granger’s back had faced him when the protective barrier went into place.

He wondered if he should tell her now. But what good would it do? Odds were slim she’d believe him.

The moment remained locked inside. 

“Azkaban can change a man,” Draco settled instead. “But my perspective shifted long before then.”

Granger released the breath she must have held. “Good,” she said with a terse nod. She pushed up her sleeve and stuck out her arm. “Then you should have no reservations seeing what happens.”

Draco couldn’t form a rebuttal. 

He extended his hand, feeling the heat rise with every inch closer. Their snowy setting no longer protected them: it melted from his consciousness. He was drawn to her, like a Doxy to draperies. Two inches away. One. Tiny _Incendios_ seemed to ignite his fingertips as he neared her skin. His thoughts went hazy; his vision went blurry. 

Their skin connected, and instant cold consumed him. Even the air inside his lungs seemed to chill, suddenly more aware of the wintry ambience and his thin robes. Gooseflesh lined his arms for the first time in years. His internal roaring fire smothered, forcing his body to confront the snow. 

Unlike Granger the first time they touched, he didn’t let go. Now that he expected it, Draco relished the cold. The lack of heat was refreshing. 

He peered up to meet Granger’s gaze, finding her eyes alight in fascination. When he eventually pulled back, that fascination only grew. Thin red lines where his hand had been adorned her forearm. He counted the seconds, yet the imprint didn’t fade. If it was like Draco’s had been—which he had every reason to believe it was—the imprint would remain for the next minute or so.

Granger held up her arm and rotated it. “Is this what happened to you?”

“Does that part of your skin still feel cold?”

“Yes.”

“Then, yes, it’s what happened to me.” 

In the absence of their shared contact, a steady warmth refuelled inside Draco. He almost felt sad for the loss. 

When Granger tore her focus from the affected flesh, she set her attention on Draco. “I assume you also spent the last week researching?”

Draco huffed, mildly amused. “You’re not the only one who knows how to read.”

She shot him a critical look, but when he let a teasing grin reveal itself on the edges of his lips, her disapproval dissolved.

“Anything useful?”

He sighed. “A few articles here and there about how ingesting certain Potions can cause someone to leave traces like this, but nothing alluding to any of the other side-effects.” 

Granger paused, eyebrows furrowing as she considered the information for several long moments. 

“Our skin appears to be affected when our palm meets the other person’s flesh,” she said, quill tip tapping against the desk’s surface in the space between thoughts. “It’s not exact, but this seems akin to Harry and Voldemort. Well, Quirrell with Voldemort attached to him. Harry said that one of his last memories before passing out was seeing Quirrell’s face start to blister after he had touched him.”

“So Potter’s contact with Quirrell caused heat, whereas ours causes cool?”

Granger hummed in agreement. 

Draco folded his arms against his chest. “And just how do you suggest these two magicks are related?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Granger admitted. “But we’re going to figure it out.” 

~*~*~

The next three parole meetings followed a similar format. Every other Thursday, Draco returned to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, entered her office, and answered the mandatory questions before they shared any uncovered research since their previous meeting. Theories flowed between them, exploring any topic they thought might be relevant. Magical bindings, Fiendfyre, Potion mishaps, Dark Magic scars, trauma. For one glorious thirty-minute stretch, they thought that Crabbe’s Fiendfyre had operated similarly to the enchanted flames inside the Goblet of Fire, somehow binding Draco and Granger together much like how putting one’s name inside the goblet bound the caster to a magical agreement. But that, too, led to a dead-end.

Unhelpful textbooks stacked in piles. The list of questions lengthened. Snow suppressed their sweltering surges. They didn’t touch again. 

When the last week of June rolled around and only one month remained in his mandated meetings, he and Granger were no closer to uncovering the reason for their connection. The only notable development was that Granger had started gathering her hair into a bun whenever he arrived, presumably to free her neck of the additional heat caused by its heavy weight. Without her bushy curls in the way, it was easier to see her pink-tinted cheeks whenever he was near and her wrinkled nose whenever she fell into deep thought. As the weeks went by, Draco found himself noticing those features with increasing frequency—mere measures of whether the temperature affected her and how hard she concentrated on their work. Not that Draco really ever doubted either.

He snapped out of his observational trance when Granger groaned and slammed another volume shut, stirring a puff of fallen snowflakes on the corner of her desk. She levitated the book to the top of a nearby pile. 

“Nothing new in there either,” she said, voice strained with exasperation. “Just another iteration about how Fiendfyre is dangerous and volatile. Of course I know that. Even as an eighteen year old, I was wise enough not to mess with it, no matter how tempting.”

Draco set aside the text he was supposed to be focused on. “Hermione Granger once considered using Dark Magic? By all means, do tell.”

The pink on her cheeks deepened to crimson. While he couldn’t be certain of the exact cause, Draco had a feeling. The formation of her given name on his tongue felt just as foreign as it sounded, despite being tied with her last. 

They pushed forward without addressing it.

“During the war, I discovered that Fiendfyre was one of the few known substances capable of destroying Horcruxes. But even when we couldn’t think of any other options, I still didn’t dare to use it,” Granger explained. “Fiendfyre is notorious for being near-impossible to control. The fire is sentient. Once cast, it takes up a mind of its own.” Her nose wrinkled, a look now alarmingly familiar to Draco. “Which once again begs the question of _why_ the Fiendfyre only scarred us. It aims to kill.” 

The sentiment hung in the crisp air for only a handful of seconds before something ignited behind Granger’s gaze and she summoned one of the previously dismissed volumes. The pages flipped through her hands while Draco remained unmoved, a sudden wave of uncertainty crashing over him. He watched Granger intently, wondering if the words were even worth confessing, when they slipped out anyway.

“I always hoped the flames sparing me was a sign that I still had the chance to be a better man.”

The flipping of pages paused. She blinked at him, a hint of surprise hidden behind the brown eyes scanning his face. 

“That’s a nice thought,” she softly spoke, attempted comfort in her tone.

Draco’s heart constricted as he leaned back. “It helped me get through Azkaban,” he said, a facade of nonchalance. “That, and the warmth provided by my scar.”

“You touched it to counteract the cold?”

“Routinely.”

An actual smile graced her lips. “Explains why I thought I was going through menopause in my early twenties.”

“Meno— what?”

Granger snickered, and for the first time in two months, levity filled her office.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Draco, caught up in the startling but not unwelcome sound of her laughter, didn’t notice Granger reach across the desk to grab his hand. His body flooded with the contented cool that corresponded with her touch—a feeling he hadn’t realised he missed until it consumed him for a third time. The snow’s cold chilled him for only a moment before her thumb grazed over his scar, spurring a conflagration to replace the tranquil serenity. Yet the change in temperature didn’t upset him. The resulting fire was a commensurate comfort. It felt no different just because Granger ignited it. 

“Our scars mirror each other,” she said, fingertip running along the path that travelled up the side of his thumb. “Yours curves up to the right, mine to the left.”

Draco stilled. His attention remained set on her delicate trace, too caught up in the sensation to try to postulate the significance of yet another bond between them. He briefly wondered what it would feel like to have her touch rove further than that, for longer than just a fleeting panicked grip. Or maybe they could explore each other’s scars at the same time, prompting an internal fire they had not yet uncovered. 

Those thoughts dropped from his mind when her voice pulled him back to the present.

“I just wish I could connect all these pieces,” she said, hardly above a whisper. “Not necessarily so we can fix it. Above everything, I want to understand.”

Heat strummed through Draco’s veins like a steady flow of lava. But he didn’t disagree. He could live with the heat—he’d already done that for five years. Yet curiosity was a tricky devil that could burn him even worse if left unaddressed. 

“We must be missing something,” Draco said, eyes unable to leave the sight of her fingertip still brushing over his skin. “Perhaps Crabbe cast it wrong. Or whatever he was thinking at the time impacted the fire’s intent.”

Granger gasped. “Or what if—”

She dropped their connection, and the rushing warmth promptly dimmed to a faint glow in the snow’s placating presence. No cold lingered where she had been—his scar was apparently immune to that aftermath—yet Draco shivered at her absence nonetheless. 

A heavy book plopped onto the desk. “It _is_ possible the fire’s intent changed, though maybe not because of something Crabbe did,” Granger said as her fingers leafed through the discoloured, aged pages. When she landed on the chapter titled ‘Fiendfyre,’ Granger turned the book for Draco to read and pointed to a paragraph in the lower corner. “Fiendfyre is so difficult to control because it imbibes what makes it stronger, much like Goblin silver. That’s why it’s able to destroy a Horcrux. It overpowers it by absorbing the magic and then adding that energy to its flames. Provided the assortment of items stashed away in the Room of Requirement, there’s no telling what it may have consumed and altered its properties.”

Her eyes beamed with excitement, so certain she was on the brink of breakthrough, that Draco felt guilty squashing it. 

“Even if the fire absorbed something that influenced its intent, that doesn’t explain why it didn’t spare Crabbe along with us.”

Granger deflated. Apparently, she didn’t have a counter-argument. 

He wished she did.

A firm knock tapped twice against the door, and within a frantic heartbeat, they had both set to action. Draco shrunk his set of research books and summoned them to his pocket while Granger vanished the snow and yanked her hair out from its bun. The heat instantly skyrocketed, and Draco reluctantly refastened the top button of his robes’ collar. No more than a minute had passed before the scene he and Granger presented resembled nothing other than the Head Deputy of Magical Law Enforcement conducting a routine meeting with a former Azkaban prisoner.

When Granger called for her to enter, the front desk witch stuck her head through the opened crack. 

“Your two o’clock is here.”

“Thank you, Amira. I’ll be right with them.”

The door clicked closed, and they both sighed. Their time was up. The duration of his parole meetings was never enough, even after Granger had extended it.

“I suppose we’ll have to keep investigating that individually,” Granger said as she finished collecting their research. “Maybe I’ll ask McGonagall again if I can try getting the Room of Requirement to open. We might find something useful in there.”

But Draco hardly registered the second half of her words. His eyes locked onto the calendar on an adjacent wall. In less than a week, it would be July, which meant he only had two more parole meetings before the anniversary of his release marked the start of his full freedom. But that also meant he only had two more meetings with Granger. At this rate, they wouldn’t come close to answering all their questions in time, especially if they continued to meet only during the forty-five minute block reserved in her schedule. 

She was still going on about something she could potentially research when Draco cut her off.

“What are you doing this weekend?”

An incredulous stare met his while nonexistent flames flared between them.

“Nothing definitive.”

Draco swallowed. “Then we should do something together.”

Her stare grew wider, mouth hung open, and Draco cursed the heat for muddling his thoughts before he properly articulated his intention.

“Research. We should research together.”

She blinked several times, gaze seeming to shift back to focus. 

“And where do you propose we do that without stirring attention from unwanted parties?”

“My family has a summer home in Devon, away from everything else, where we can stay as long as we need. Just you and me.”

Even with her hair down, Draco caught her cheeks flush. The heat must have been getting to them both. Yet it wasn’t the worst look on her. Far from it.

“All weekend?” she asked.

“Doesn’t need to be,” Draco clarified with a nonchalant shrug. “Though at this point, I think we can agree it may be best to get this over with. Besides,”—he rested his forearms on her desk and leaned in despite the resulting surge in heat—“since when does Hermione Granger turn down the opportunity to spend all weekend researching?”

Her given name didn’t feel half as strange the second time.

She glanced down at their stack of research, grazed a hand over their list of lingering questions, then peered back up at Draco. Her cheeks remained rosy.

“We can meet Saturday morning and see where the weekend takes us.”

Draco nodded his assent. It would be a strictly strategic time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied. This story will have three chapters.
> 
> (And niffizzle swears to herself for the fifteenth time this year that she will never post another WIP without it being completely written beforehand. I think I just found my New Year's resolution??)
> 
> Massive, massive love to mightbewriting who is not only a wonderful writer but also a wonderful, wonderful human being. If you aren't reading Beginning and End, go run and do that now because she is blessing us with a new chapter each day for the rest of the week until it's complete. It will make you feel the entire range of human emotions.
> 
> Additional love to HeyJude19 for her alpha/beta support and mutual admiration of strategic times


	3. Chapter 3

The Floo roared to life, igniting both green flames from the charred embers and internal flames at her anticipated arrival. Draco had told her to meet him at the Malfoys’ summer cottage in Devon—though to call it a cottage made it sound more quaint than appropriate. Lush gardens surrounded the eight bedroom home nestled between towering trees that lined a nearby river. The next closest home was at least a quarter mile away. With Narcissa spending her summer in France, the only person Draco would interact with all weekend was the witch currently brushing emerald soot off her clothes: Hermione Granger.

And fuck if he didn’t already regret the invitation.

Draco had spent all of Thursday evening and Friday preparing for their research weekend. He explored new avenues. Identified helpful tomes. Compiled his acquired knowledge and prepared to spend Saturday and Sunday debating with Granger. He did not prepare for her to step into the Malfoy Cottage looking like _that._

She wore a dress. Not robes— _a dress._ A nice dress. A flattering dress. A dress with thin straps and an above-the-knee hem, exposing large expanses of creamy skin and shapely legs Draco had never previously noticed. 

The receiving room soared in temperature, even after Granger called for their usual snowstorm. 

The snow did near-nothing to suppress Draco’s fever nor channel his focus. Already, he was sweating more than a Bowtruckle in a wood chipper factory. Adorned with her typical bushy bun, Granger had dressed for their inevitable heat while Draco was stuck in summer robes that weighed against his skin in fabric torment. Why in the ever living fuck did wizard clothing insist on being so stuffy? 

“You’re late,” he said, yet no actual malice strained his tone. After all, she couldn’t be more than three minutes past nine. 

Of all the possible reactions in the world, Granger grinned at him: confident with a dash of cheekiness. She lifted an arm with a beaded handbag around her wrist. “Had to finish collecting my materials.”

It wasn’t an apology. Not that Draco expected—or deserved—to hear one. 

“Yes, well, we should get started,” Draco commented instead, dropping the topic before the flames prodding his brain in this incrementally stifling room became too insufferable. “Best not delay any further since we already lost Friday night.”

He exited the receiving room, knowing Granger was smart enough to follow. He didn’t wait for her to catch up. If he remained in front of her, Draco could grant himself a few minutes without needing to look at her in that nuisance of an alluring dress.

As Draco proceeded down the hall, the snowstorm also followed, forming a flurry of flakes as they passed the parlour, Lucius’ study, and courtyard entrance. Upon reaching the heavy double doors, Draco pushed them open, revealing the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with titles that didn’t fit in the Manor’s main collection. From behind him, Draco heard Granger’s breath catch, but he didn’t look back to see any more of her reaction. It came as no shock that the display impressed Granger. To a witch like her, this was probably heaven. 

Draco walked past the spiral staircase that granted access to the books on the second level and proceeded to the antique walnut table positioned in the room’s centre. On its surface laid the beneficial resources Draco had compiled first thing that morning.

He tried not to fixate on the heat. 

“There must be at least five thousand books here,” she marvelled, voice bouncing off the bookshelves and flooding Draco’s ears.

Her entire presence was alight with unadulterated joy, like a third-year visiting Honeydukes for the first time. Fingertips hovered over century-old book spines, as if itching to reach out and read every one she passed. 

Draco chuckled. “I don’t recall inviting you here for a leisurely tour.” 

In his heat-induced haze, the teasing remark slipped past Draco’s lips without the words fully forming in his consciousness. Granger tore her gaze from the bookshelves to peer in his direction, and Draco ignored the way his heart constricted at the reminder of how she looked in that bloody dress. 

“No tour necessary,” she taunted in return. “I’m perfectly capable of exploring a library on my own.”

The room burned. Scorching, searing heat.

She stood ten feet away. It shouldn’t be this hot.

Merlin, save him. They needed answers. 

“How about a compromise? If we manage to figure out what’s happening between us before Sunday night, you can have unlimited access to these books for the remainder of the weekend.”

Excitement flashed in her eyes, and Draco strained to keep a neutral expression as a newfound fire roared even greater inside him.

“In that case, we better get to work,” she settled with a smile.

Draco released a mental sigh. He didn’t know why the heat flared more than usual this morning, but he hoped to soon finally uncover something, _anything_ edifying. Once Granger joined him at the table, they would fall into their usual research pattern in which they flipped through books until one of them found a lead worth discussing, while the surrounding snow made the room tolerable for them to think.

Except, not a single snowflake appeared in the library. 

Draco furrowed his brow as she neared the chair across from him. “Why’d you cancel the snowstorm?”

His confusion soon partnered with Granger’s. She startled, eyes darting around the room which contained no clouds nor snow.

“I didn’t.” Her forehead creased as she stopped two paces away from the table’s edge. “It should have followed me in here.”

Their mutual confusion lingered for only a beat before it quickly morphed into shared curiosity. Granger pulled out her wand and uttered the spell to summon another snowstorm. 

_Nothing._

She tried again. Then Draco. Yet neither could get the grey clouds to form overhead.

Draco cursed beneath his breath, realisation dawning. 

“The room must be guarded with protective charms to ensure that nothing damages the books,” he said when the spell failed for a fifth time. 

A frown tugged the edges of her lips. “My spell is modified so the snow doesn’t melt or gather on parchments.” 

“That may be,” Draco conceded, having noticed that much for himself over their past several weeks in her office, “but the spell it’s based on _does_ allow the snow to melt. I’m guessing the protective charms my ancestors cast on this room don’t differentiate that specifically.”

“Then disable them.”

He huffed. “It’s not that easy. Unfortunately, that is a privilege reserved for the Head of Household, who is currently still locked away in Azkaban.”

A temporary silence stretched between them, filled with flaring fire at their almost intolerable proximity, while the gravity of their present predicament weighed on them both. He and Granger wouldn’t make any progress if they couldn’t even sit at the same table without an inferno scorching every muscle, bone, and organ inside of them. 

“We could take whatever books we need out of here and complete our research in another room,” Granger suggested, as if Draco had voiced his concerns aloud. 

But a vastly different solution had already taken hold of Draco’s thoughts: one that seeped through him like a toxic potion that he knew meant certain danger, but whose sweet smelling promise had made it too tempting to resist tasting. 

“Or we could touch and not have to deal with snow at all.”

Granger blinked at him, a crimson tint colouring her cheeks. “Touching is a temporary solution.”

“And your snowstorm isn’t?”

“We need something long-term.”

“I don’t recall disagreeing.”

“If we touch each other’s skin, we’ll chill our bodies for three straight days, eliminating any potential experimentation that may be necessary the rest of the weekend.”

“Unless that touch remains restricted to one spot.”

Which is precisely how Draco Malfoy ended up holding fucking hands with Hermione Granger for several hours as they continued their research. The steady flow of tempering bliss flowed through him at their constant touch and regulated internal temperature, yet Draco wasn’t convinced this was actually any better. The heat may no longer cloud his thoughts, but distraction still flared inside him each time he so much as looked at her—or their intertwined fingers.

The day passed in a blur of flipped pages and scribbled notes. Books summoned off the shelves whenever one was finished. Quills across parchment at a rapid pace. Circular discussions about what they already knew. The feel of Granger’s hand in his. Repetition of theories they already dismissed as non-possibilities. Civil conversation. A general lack of vexing swottiness. Recurrent glances at the scar on his left hand. No sign of a ring on hers. The conjuring of a board to collect and connect their ideas. A traitorous thought of whether or not she was still with Weasley. 

Fiendfyre. He was thinking about _Fiendfyre._

Next to him, Draco’s parchment was filled with notes about different Potion ingredients known to have cooling properties. After Granger told Draco that she had once again failed to get the Room of Requirement open, he had started to doubt they would ever determine the cause of their connection. That doubt only increased after the sun set and early moonlight began to glow through the library’s windows. If the combined research abilities of two of Hogwarts’ greatest minds from their year— _Granger’s_ deeming, not his—yielded so few results, perhaps they should focus on how to better squash their daily heat, even in each other’s absence. 

“We must be missing _something,”_ Granger said for what must have been at least the tenth time. 

She ripped her hand free and an instant warmth flooded Draco’s veins. He did his best to dismiss the heat and concentrate on what Granger said next.

“The only thing we know for certain is that we both started feeling the heat after being touched by the Fiendfyre, though that could have only been a catalyst.”

“For which we have no theories as to what could have happened to both of us beforehand to cause the Fiendfyre to react the way that it did.”

“Yet it’s the only logical explanation as to why it spared us and not Crabbe.”

Draco let out a soft groan then rubbed slow circles around his temples. “I’m quite aware. And trust me, I wish we had an answer to that. It would be infinitely easier to design a potion for us if I had a better sense of direction.”

Granger continued to ramble on about the same clues they did know, reviewing everything accumulated on their idea board. Increased heat in each other’s presence, cool when directly touching, corresponding scars that affected the body temperature in both of them. Yes, yes, yes. Draco didn’t need her to rehash it for a hundredth time when he lived this reality as well.

He scanned his gaze downward, off the board and to Granger’s ankle. To anyone else, it would be easy to miss, but Draco effortlessly spotted her scar’s faint outline. Heat swelled inside him just thinking about what it would be like for her to touch it. For _him_ to touch it. 

The concept consumed Draco. Granger had touched his scar before, but never he hers. An ankle wasn’t as natural to reach out and touch. Yet the thought stirred a pleasant fire behind his ribcage. To gently brush his thumb over her scar, a mirror image to his. So similar, and yet different. A curve to the left instead of a curved to the right; much like how he was left handed and she was right. Almost like they were two pieces of the same puzzle, destined to be interlocked. 

The notion vanished at the sound of Granger slumping back into the chair beside Draco. Mind-charring flames surged to new peaks but they quickly died the instant Granger’s hand found his. Their fingers laced together easily. After so many hours, the feel of her cool skin felt oddly familiar. _Comforting._

An entirely natural reaction, of course. With their palms against one another, any thought of raging heat was washed away by the blissful calm that disseminated from where their skin met and reached every extremity. Just another side effect of their connection.

They worked in silence for several more minutes. Or rather, Draco tried to work during that time. His eyes kept darting over to the witch next to him, her attention locked on the set of open pages. But Draco’s mind had reached capacity for the day.

He set down his quill, then reached over to close her book. 

“Excuse you,” she protested. “I was reading that!”

“And you can keep reading it tomorrow,” Draco said. “But we’ve been researching for over ten hours straight. We need to eat eventually.”

She parted her lips, no doubt the formation of further protest tempting the tip of her tongue, but she opted for a smile instead.

“And just what do you have in mind for dinner?”

~*~*~

Never in Draco’s life had he done such a thing. His mother would faint if she knew. He could practically hear her admonishment: one does _not_ dine on centuries-old velvet tufted furniture. Yet Draco hadn’t stopped Granger when she accepted their food delivery from the owl outside a parlour window and set the bag down on the coffee table in front of the antique green sofa.

Empty takeaway containers covered the table’s surface, while Draco and Granger continued to chat on the sofa, long past the conclusion of their meal. 

“You’re quite studious,” Granger said from the sofa cushion beside him.

A huffed snort shot through his nose. “Coming from Hermione Granger, I take that as a compliment.”

“Don’t read too much into it,” she dismissed, yet Draco caught a pink flush crawling across her cheeks. 

He clasped her hand tighter—the only way they were able to sit so close together without their insides feeling like a Phoenix about to burst into flames. Perhaps Granger was still hot and needed the additional surge of cool that only his touch could provide. For some reason, her flush only deepened.

“You did it again, you know,” she said, words tinged with a cautious undertone.

“Did what?” 

“Called me Hermione Granger instead of just Granger.”

An odd sensation travelled through Draco. He hadn’t even noticed this time.

“If you’d prefer, I can go back to—”

“No.” Her immediate objection held no trace of hesitancy. She smiled. “It’s, uh, nice to hear you acknowledge my given name.”

A beat of silence. A clenching in his chest.

“It was never that I had a problem with calling you Hermione,” Draco stated, definitely not thinking about her hand laced with his. “Back at school, I referred to most people by their last names. Crabbe, Goyle, Potter, Weasley…” 

He lifted an eyebrow, watching every muscle in her face to gauge her reaction to the mention of Weasley’s name. She didn’t so much as twitch.

Draco pushed, seizing the opportunity he didn’t want to admit may have been a subconscious—or not so subconscious—effort to provide the seemingly natural segue. 

“And how is the Dunderhead Duo?”

Granger rolled her eyes then shoved his shoulder, an easy smile on her lips. _“Harry_ and _Ron.”_

She laughed, and Draco couldn’t help but join her. 

“Too far,” Draco insisted, amused. “I can only tolerate one given name at a time.”

The comment earned Draco another eyeroll, but her smile had yet to fade. 

“They’re good,” she eventually answered. “The Auror office keeps Harry plenty busy, and Ron and Lavender just got a rabbit. Ron’s not entirely thrilled, but I think we can all remember how devastated she was when Binky died, even if it _was_ a completely flawed interpretation of Trelawney’s prediction _‘coming true.’”_

No, Draco absolutely did not remember that. He hadn’t spent one minute thinking about Lavender Brown in the past five years. But from Granger’s statement, he could infer enough that Weasley and Brown had gotten back together. Meaning Granger was no longer with Weasley. 

_Interesting._

Not that it mattered. Draco was simply curious. 

“What about your friends?”

Draco barked a laugh. “I was in Azkaban the past three years. Not exactly the best place to sustain friendships.”

“You’ve been free for almost a year,” Granger remarked.

“Well, let’s just say I didn’t reach out after my release.”

“Why’s that?”

Draco canted his head. Did he really need to answer that question? But judging by the wide-eyed interest in her expression, she sincerely wanted to know. 

He leaned back against the sofa cushions and let out a sigh. “Four years without freedom can put a lot of things in perspective. It made me realise that the people I considered friends weren’t really anything more than mindless followers—not actually the type of people I prefer to associate myself with. After the initial shock of Crabbe’s death wore off, I had to face the greater shock that I didn’t grieve him.”

“You didn’t?”

Draco shook his head. “Not one bit.”

Crabbe’s final moments flashed before his vision in a blur of swirling orange and reds. How the fiery monsters had surrounded them, Draco certain he had finally reached his end. But Draco hadn’t made it this far for this to be the way he died. He had survived the Dark Lord’s intended death sentence, leaving him second-guessing everything he had ever known. If he made it out of that room alive, Draco vowed to be a better man.

And Draco had survived. Scarred, but alive. Crabbe hadn’t been able to outrun the flames of his own making.

It was what he deserved for trying to kill Granger.

Draco peered down at his Fiendfyre scar, then across the sofa to where Granger sat with her legs tucked beneath her, her own scar barely visible. 

“I know we agreed to stop researching tonight,” Draco said, voicing the decision they had made right after finishing dinner, “but there’s one thing I want to try that we haven’t yet.”

Granger slightly shifted, their fingers still interlocked. “And what might that be?”

“We should touch our scars at the same time.”

As soon as he suggested it, Draco knew she wouldn’t be able to resist. Granger was the curious type, as was Draco. He could appreciate that about her. And with the way her eyes lit up in instant intrigue, he presumed that appreciation was mutual.

“I hadn’t considered that,” she admitted, and Draco beamed more than he should have at the acknowledgement that he had thought of something that Granger hadn’t. “Do you think it will do anything different than when we touch them individually?”

“We won’t know until we try, will we?”

She chuckled, a sweet, serendipitous sound. “No, I suppose we won’t.”

For the first time since sitting on the sofa, he and Granger released their fingers from their twined connection, and the all-too-familiar heat ascended around them. Draco blocked it from consciousness and set his entire focus on the witch in front of him. 

Once Granger had also twisted her position so they better faced each other, Draco poised a finger over his scar while her touch hovered over her ankle. He started the countdown. When Draco reached zero, they both touched their respective scars.

Fire burned from behind his ribcage, more powerful and scathing than anything Draco remembered ever experiencing. And yet, it was nothing remarkable compared to the perpetual heat to which he had grown accustomed. At a certain point, fire was fire. He could only burn so hot before it all felt the same.

Draco gave the countdown again, and they both dropped their touch on the scars and immediately found each other’s hand. The welcome cool swam through their systems, extinguishing the recent heat. 

“I reckon we shouldn’t have expected anything different,” Draco concluded, though mildly disappointed that it hadn’t resulted in something other than _more heat._

But the burn of curiosity still ignited behind Granger’s gaze. “We haven’t tried touching each other’s scars at the same time.”

A rush of wildfire tore through him at the new suggestion. His attention tracked from her scar up the length of her body in that damn dress to the bushy bun atop her head then back down to the scar. The muscles in his throat tightened. He had imagined this possibility, but the prospect of actually touching her scar felt strangely intimate. 

Yet Draco leaned forward as Granger scooted closer. His left hand stretched out towards her ankle, inches away from the scar so familiar and yet still foreign, while her own hand reached down to meet his. She did the countdown this time.

_Three. Two. One._

The world exploded in a kaleidoscope of colours. Fuschia. Turquoise. Seafoam. All in millisecond flashes, blending together in a captivating collage.

Amber. 

Draco’s blood sparked and spun. 

Orange. 

He was back in the Room of Hidden Things.

Ruby.

Crabbe’s murderous cry tore through him like a distant echo.

Crimson.

The protective barrier appeared.

Scarlet.

Granger dove to safety.

White.

The memories rippled away, leaving him in a blank void. Draco couldn’t orient himself: no sense of up or down, left or right. He latched onto the only tangible thing within reach yet it still felt like he was in freefall. The world was buzzing, spinning, blazing. 

Reality came back in a crash.

When the effects of their touch wore off, Draco blinked himself back to focus, only to find that his crash hadn’t been imagined. He and Granger had fallen off the sofa—Draco laid on top of her.

Draco knew he should be concerned about whatever he had just experienced, but he was too fixated with Granger directly beneath him. Brown eyes wide in shock, yet locked with his. Breaths so close they mingled. Rapid heartbeats that he could feel against his own chest. And her lips..

Her lips were right there. An inch, maybe two, away. They hung parted, slow, gasping breaths escaping past them with each inhale. He and Granger were already experimenting. What would happen if Draco just… leaned in and kissed her?

Draco pushed himself off of her before that preposterous thought took any more hold. 

“It’s getting late,” he said, fully aware that he wasn’t meeting her eyes. “We should go to bed if we want to get an early start.” 

Granger got to her feet, no doubt looking at him incredulously. He could feel it burning into his skin.

“We need to discuss what we just— what just happened.”

“We can discuss in the morning,” Draco bluntly stated. He vanished the takeaway containers, restoring the room to its typical pristine state. “Your room is the second one on the right at the top of the stairs. I already prepared it with fresh sheets.”

Draco walked away without wishing her goodnight.

He hadn’t thought much of the heat that filled the room until it started to wane with each step he took away from her. He just needed distance from her right now. Distance to clear his head and centre his thoughts.

“My nightmares stopped, too.”

Draco froze.

“After you touched me,” she continued. “They stopped.”

His movements felt frigid as Draco turned to face her, expression set in a cold thin line.

“That was nearly a month and a half ago.”

Granger slinked her arms around her waist. “I know.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me before now? Or literally any point earlier today?” Draco asked, not sure if he should be offended, hurt, or angry.

She breathed in deep. “I’ve had a week or two without them before, but never this long. I wanted to make sure they were really gone this time.” She shrugged, then offered him a faint, apologetic smile. “And it wasn’t relevant to the potion research you did today, so I didn’t want to distract you.”

“It’s not a distraction if it’s something relating to us.”

They stared at each other for several long seconds, neither saying a word. Memory of almost two months ago came rushing back, when they had stood an equal distance apart, staring at each other in front of the destroyed entrance to the Room of Requirement. Draco had doubted then that anything good would come of his connection with Granger, but he had never anticipated this: that he would actually care that her nightmares had stopped, or that he was sad that she’d had to suffer them in the first place. 

Which led to the undeniable conclusion that somehow, at some point over the past several weeks, his perspective of her had changed—even more than it had during his final year at Hogwarts or during his reflection while locked away in Azkaban. He _cared._

But this connection between them was temporary. It only lasted as long as their scars bound them together. As soon as they determined the cause and how to get rid of the heat, they’d proceed with separate lives and never speak with each other again.

The thought clawed at Draco’s chest, but he accepted that reality. Even if he did want something more than this ceasefire between two former enemies for the sake of a shared mission, the only end result was certain tragedy. After all, she was Hermione Granger. And he was Draco Malfoy. He’d endured three years in a solitary cell. The past year hadn’t provided much company either. Perhaps he was better off staying alone. It had helped him survive this far.

His heart felt heavy as he cast one final gaze over her for the night.

“I know how much the nightmares taunted me,” Draco said, words tight as he spoke. “I’m glad they’re gone for you, too.”

He exited the parlour and went up to his bedroom before Granger could say anything more. It wasn’t until he was a safe distance away that Draco realised they had never even attempted to cast the snowstorm again.

~*~*~

Sleep was an evasive endeavour. Draco tossed. Turned. Stared at the ceiling trying not to imagine what Granger was thinking just two rooms over. When he finally stilled his thoughts long enough for a shallow slumber to take over, Draco plummeted back into mental freefall. 

Black swirled across Draco’s vision until he landed back in the Room of Hidden Things. Except, Draco wasn’t himself. Or at least, he could still see himself. A younger version: from five years ago.

Teetering stacks of forgotten items lined the makeshift aisles where the younger Draco along with Goyle and a still living Crabbe snuck into the room behind Potter, Granger, and Weasley. Potter reached for the diadem. Draco called for him to stop.

The scene played out in perfect facsimile—clearer than any memory Draco had ever been able to conjure of that day, now reliving it from an outsider’s perspective. 

An argument over Potter holding Draco’s Hawthorn wand. Crabbe trying to take charge. The subsequent cry of _Descendo,_ sending a tower of discarded furniture to topple. Granger running around a corner to help Potter in the commotion.

“It’s that Mudblood. _Avada Kedavra!”_

Even in the dream, years after the initial incident, Crabbe’s uttering of that word still twisted Draco’s core. Its echo seeped through him like a poison, intermingling with the hatred Draco felt for the person he once called a friend—if that was even the proper word to call Crabbe.

Pure disdain tainted younger Draco’s features, though it only lasted a fleeting moment. His mother’s wand was in his hand a split second later, casting the protective barrier in front of Granger before the lethal jet of green light hit its target.

Granger’s dive out of the way. Potter’s call for a Stunning Spell. Crabbe’s crash into Draco. Draco’s dropping of his mother’s wand.

The rest of the scene unfolded before Draco’s eyes, a spectator to the minutes that had changed so much. He watched it attentively. Conflict turned to chaos when the roar of abnormally tall flames began tearing through the room. The Fiendfyre consumed everything in its path as childhood disagreements fell to irrelevancy in the sprint to save their lives. The flames chased them, as if determined to consume them, too. Nothing seemed to stop it. Not _Aguamenti._ Not more junk falling in its path. The cursed, sentient fire absorbed everything, only making it stronger.

Including a protective barrier Draco had cast mere minutes earlier: still standing since his mother’s wand had fallen from his hand before Draco had the chance to dissolve it.

The dream continued, including the moments when the fire licked both him and Granger. Her ankle first, then Draco’s hand. When they all burst through the rectangular patch on the wall and crashed into the corridor beyond, Draco awoke in a jolt, a cold sweat covering his body. 

A second later, his feet met the floorboards. Draco immediately made for the door, wasting no time wrapping a robe over his white t-shirt and boxers. His heart stammered when Granger exited her room near-simultaneously, eyes wide in disbelief, mingled with confusion. 

Neither had to ask: they had just experienced the same dream.

The heat could scorch all it wanted between them; Draco’s mind was ablaze anyway. For the first time in five years, he finally understood.

“Library,” was all he needed to say before Granger followed him downstairs. The moment he could feel her close in behind him, Draco instinctively reached back and linked their hands together. The resulting shift in temperature at their touch was an afterthought.

Moonlight shrouded the library, casting a luminous glow over the central walnut table. Draco dropped their hold to cast an _Incendio_ and light the lanterns. Parchments flew through his fingers as he searched for their notes from the day before.

“What are you looking for?” Granger asked, starting to leaf through the parchments herself.

“Our notes. Thursday. What you said about Fiendfyre.”

He didn’t look up to see her reaction, yet he felt her curiosity all the same.

“You said something on Thursday about Fiendfyre’s properties,” Draco clarified. “Along the lines of how it imbibes what makes it stronger.”

Granger reached across the desk and retrieved one of the volumes she had brought with her. She opened it to the chapter on Fiendfyre.

“Here.”

Draco read through the opening lines, refreshing his memory on everything Granger had told him the day before. Her inquisitive gaze still bore into him.

“But what in that vision has to do with the properties of Fiendfyre?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we be more interested in why it showed us an altered version of what happened? Surely there’s more significance in that.”

The floor of Draco’s stomach gave out and his insides plummeted to his feet. It was just as Draco had predicted: even witnessing the spell happen—albeit in dream form—Granger didn’t believe it possible.

His fingertips pressed against the table’s surface. His throat felt thick.

“That’s exactly how it happened.”

He pushed himself upright, leaving the book open on the table.

“We wondered if Crabbe had done something to change the fire’s intent. But what if it wasn’t Crabbe, and it was actually me?”

Her eyebrows furrowed, though a flicker of understanding began to ignite behind her gaze.

Draco swallowed, then pointed to the same paragraph Granger had referenced.

“Fiendfyre is so difficult to control because it imbibes what makes it stronger. What we just saw— that protective barrier. The spell was still active when the flames consumed it. Hence altering the Fiendfyre’s properties and causing the flames to become protective.” 

Hearing it out loud, the final pieces clicked into place. From their very first meeting, Granger had made the connection. She just didn’t have all the information to help her put it together. But now, with everything laid out in front of them, it was clear as day.

Disbelief had reformed over Granger’s features, yet Draco pressed on anyway. He took her hands into his, prompting the cooling flood.

“That first day, in your office,” Draco said, “we realised that our skin is only affected when our palm meets the other person’s flesh.” He dropped his hold of her hands only to reach out and grasp her bare shoulders, eliciting a surprised gasp at the unexpected surge of cold. “You said then that it was akin to the connection between Potter and the Dark Lord. But our sensations were different. The opposite. Their touch caused insufferable heat, only affecting the Dark Lord because Potter was protected by what his mother had done. Ours causes cool because—”

“You protected me.”

Flecks of amber reflected in her unblinking stare while lush pink lips hung agape.

“Exactly,” Draco confirmed, confident that his pounding heartbeat was audible in the moments between their words. “So when the Fiendfyre, imbued with my protective spell, touched us, it forged a connection instead of killing us.”

Incredulous eyes searched his face. “I thought I dove out of the way.”

“You tried,” Draco said, hands still tight around her shoulders. “Just not fast enough.”

“And you— saved me?”

“I did.”

“Why?”

He sucked in a breath. “I knew what it was like to see someone’s life taken from them, and I suppose I couldn’t imagine a world without Hermione Granger in it.” A beat passed before a smirk pulled the edges of his lips. “Had I known what I was getting myself into, I may have reconsidered.”

He waited for her to ask more questions. Or perhaps berate him for not telling her about the protective barrier sooner. At the very least roll her eyes at his last remark. Those reactions were predictable. Expected. Granger tugging him by his shirt until her mouth met his was not.

The rush was like none other. Twin sensations poured through his body as the cool of their connection mixed with the fire of their kiss, fusing together into something Draco never wanted to lose. Her hand rested against Draco’s cheek as again and again, soft, pillowy lips collided with his, and every synapse in his system ignited like fireworks. The best kind of heat imaginable. 

Draco pulled her closer, sealing their bodies against one another. Through the thin fabrics of their pyjamas, he could feel her heart’s hurried staccato against his chest. His hand moved across her shoulder, leaving a wake of cooled skin as he found the spaghetti strap keeping her top in place. He toyed with the strap, rolling it between his fingers, exploring the flesh underneath, but nothing more than that. Draco was determined to follow Granger’s lead, however far that would take them.

Years of imprisonment had kept him locked away from such pleasures, yet never before had a kiss enraptured Draco like this. Every inch of him felt eager. Alive. Granger entangled her hands in his hair, gentle grasps that made him moan against her mouth, but he craved her touch in different places. Anywhere. Everywhere. 

Yet she pulled away, leaving Draco breathless as he stared at her freshly-kissed lips.

He feared the worst: a hurried ‘ _sorry’_ followed by a ‘ _we shouldn’t have done that.’_ Dreaded her conclusion that kissing him had been a foolish impulse. They couldn’t leave it there. Not when kissing her felt like _that._

Relief coursed through Draco the instant he caught sight of her budding smile. Just a hint. An infinitesimal curl as she bit her lower lip. It was enough to send his pulse racing.

“I never expected this,” she said, hand reaching out to trace Draco’s Fiendfyre scar. He could bask in the resulting warmth for days. “But I think there’s more between us than just the connection forged by that fire.”

Sweet fucking Merlin, Draco had never heard more heart-stirring words in his life.

Their lips reconnected, and bliss bloomed inside them both. Warm lips. Cool touch. Draco knocked aside their research and sat Granger on top of the table, lavishing her with kisses as he relished her hands roving over his skin. Everywhere she touched, she left tempered flesh: the curve of his cheek, the nape of his neck, the length of his arms. Inch by inch, the flowing embers that normally prickled inside his veins no longer burned with the same heat. Instead, a different fire roared to life.

Fingertips trailed under the hem of Draco’s shirt and he hissed at the sensation. She took hold of the fabric and drew it upward until the shirt was left discarded on top of their research. Her palms roamed up and down his torso, not seeming to notice the blemished skin tainted with the jagged lines Draco typically despised. But for tonight, he didn’t loathe those scars. Not right now. As long as she kept touching him and remained in his embrace, Draco paid little mind to anything else. 

He kissed her intently, keen to never let go. Her arms draped over his shoulders, and he hitched her towards him so his bare chest was pressed against her pyjama top. Its two thin straps had already fallen off her shoulders, leaving nothing in Draco’s path as he pressed kisses down her neck and across the soft skin. 

She gasped when his hand dipped beneath her pyjama top, finding her uncovered breast. “More,” she panted, eyes closed and head tilted back. “I need—”

Draco sealed away the rest of her words with a searing kiss. He’d heard enough to know what to do next.

With her arms still draped over him, Draco clasped her tighter, then Apparated them to his bedroom. They collapsed onto his mattress and immediately started removing the little clothing left between them. 

In bed together with nothing but their bare bodies, no part of his nor Granger’s skin remained untouched. Draco worshipped every bit possible. Each place he touched earned him the most delicious sounds as he trailed his palms over her body so the scorching skin burned no longer. She did the same for him. After years of heat, it was surreal to feel the cool replace the flames, only to be quickly reignited by the pure ecstasy of her hands on him. When her touch travelled down his torso and she wrapped her fingers around his length, Draco nearly blacked out at the contact. It was too good. Too intoxicating. Nothing he knew he needed, but everything he could ever want. He yearned for more, to know what it felt like to sink his length into her core, but for now, this was more than enough. 

Once every inch had been properly and pleasurably explored, they settled under the covers and curled into one another. Nothing but tranquil ease flowed between them. No heat. No fire. Not a single flame. Just contentment.

With Granger wrapped within his arms, Draco drifted off into a peaceful slumber. For the first time in five years, not a single bead of sweat left his body as he slept through the night. 

~*~*~

Daybreak’s sunshine beat through the bedroom window, casting its rays onto Draco and the witch still in his embrace. Even in the morning after, their usual heat hadn’t returned. Their cooling touch from the night before still placated their skin; the only warmth they felt came from the sunshine, the comforter, and each other’s natural body heat. Draco never wanted to leave this bed.

“I’ve been thinking,” Granger said, dragging her finger over Draco’s scar. It spurred no additional sparks today other than those caused by his latent desire to snog her senseless. “The other day, you said you hoped the Fiendfyre sparing you was a sign that you could be a better man, but I don’t think that was the second chance you really needed.”

She shifted so she better faced him, and Draco looked at her, confused but intrigued.

“Go on.” 

Granger sighed, relaxing deeper into his hold. “You were already on the path to being a better man, even before the Fiendfyre. The Draco Malfoy I used to know never would have cast a protective barrier to save a Muggleborn. Or not identified us when we were taken to your manor.”

The memory pierced inside Draco, a sudden sullenness taking hold. “That’s what my nightmares used to be of,” he said, voice tenser than before. “You. Screaming. When I hadn’t been able to protect you.” He reached out and tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “I should have done more.” 

She heaved a deep inhale. “We can always look back at the past and say what we should have done. It’s easier in retrospect. But when it came to it, you made the decision to cast that protective barrier. That one, split decision action proves that you were already a better man than the boy you once were. Now, you’re just more so.”

Hearing those words from her lips was all the validation Draco needed. He leaned in and kissed her, a perfect way to start the day. When he pulled back, a grin spread across his features.

“In that case, I might need a new supervising Parole Auror. I think my current one is a tad biased."

She swatted him with a firm bump of the ball of her hand, yet her giggles rang through the morning air in a sweet, hypnotic symphony.

“You’re going to be insufferable now, aren’t you?”

“Depends on your definition of insufferable,” Draco said, grin shifting into a smirk. “Either way, you’re stuck with me now. Magical bond and all that rubbish.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Is that so? I recall surviving the past five years without you.”

“Perhaps.” He brushed a finger along the curve of her waist. “But now that I’ve had the privilege of knowing what it’s like to have Hermione Granger’s cooling touch run over every inch of my body, I’ll be in need of that again every”—a kiss along her clavicle—“three”—a kiss against her neck—“days”—a kiss to her lips.

He made to pull away, but Granger’s hands kept him in place, fingers threaded through his hair while her tongue swept across the seam of his lips and slipped inside. Even so, when she broke their kiss to peer up at him, a glint of scepticism shone behind her gaze.

“Touching each other is still just a temporary solution.”

Draco chuckled. “Already planning for our demise?”

Her cheeks coloured pink: not from heat; a blush. 

“No, but we can’t hinge our next steps on whether or not we can rely on having the other person around every three days.” 

Tender traces of gentle fingers tracked over Draco’s _Sectumsempra_ scars, a motion in which he found no fault.

“Now that we know part of it, that unlocks a lot of answers regarding my other research,” Draco said, watching her fingers intently. “Though it will take considerable experimentation until I find the right potion combination to more permanently cool us, so I’m afraid we’re back to the part where you’re stuck with me. And in the meantime...”

He pulled Granger’s hand and rolled them in bed until she was laid flush on top of him. Her unsuspecting squeal tickled his eardrums. 

“Draco!” 

A spark kindled behind his ribcage.

“Say that again.”

Her eyes twinkled. _“Draco.”_

A broad smile formed across Draco’s lips before he burrowed a hand into her curls and stole another kiss. Nevermind waiting three days. He wanted this witch every second of every minute.

“You know, you promised me unlimited access to that library if we figured out our connection before the end of the weekend.” she said between kisses, looking at him with her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

Draco retrieved his wand from the nightstand and locked the bedroom door. “Forget the books, Granger. _Hermione_. You’re not going anywhere for at least another two hours.”

As she smiled at him, a new kind of flame flared inside his chest. It was one fire Draco hoped would never fade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last time, thank you all *so* much for reading! And a final (now very belated) happy birthday to mightbewriting 💕 I feel incredibly fortunate to have become friends with you over the past year, so thank you for being such a fabulous friend and enduring all my flailing over your stories 🥰
> 
> Alpha/beta love once more to the wonderful HeyJude19
> 
> Hope you all have had a safe and healthy start to 2021 so far 🎉 May this year be better than the last!

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are much appreciated and bring all the joy 💙
> 
> Come chat with me on Tumblr [@niffizzle](https://niffizzle.tumblr.com/) :)


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